Tomorrow (22 April 2015) Britain’s highest court will hear an extraordinary test case in which survivors of a 1948 massacre by British troops in colonial Malaya argue for a public inquiry into what happened and its six-decade long cover-up. The case has huge ramifications in Malaysia, where a campaign supported by 500 organisations has been pressing for justice for the survivors and their families, and in Northern Ireland, prompting an intervention in the litigation by its Attorney General and a response by the Pat Finnucane Centre and Rights Watch UK on behalf of families seeking accountability for British troops’ actions during the Troubles.

Amongst those who have travelled to attend the Supreme Court hearing is 78-year old Madam Lim Ah Yin. Her journey to the Supreme Court began in December 1948, when she was 11 years old, living on a British-owned rubber plantation in Selangor, Malaya. British troops surrounded and took control of her village, Batang Kali, separated the women and men, and began a series of interrogations to establish whether the villagers were supporting Communist insurgents. They included mock executions. The following morning she, her pregnant mother, one man and other women and children were put on a truck. The troops then took her father and 22 other unarmed men out from the longhut where they had been held overnight and shot every one of them. This incident is known as the Batang Kali Massacre (or ‘the British My Lai’). No-one has ever been prosecuted for it. The British government has never apologised. Indeed, in Court it will argue that the massacre is not legally its responsibility, despite Malaya then being a British Protected State, its nationals being British subjects, the troops involved being British, deployed on the instructions of the British Cabinet to protect British interests in the rubber trade.

The killings were portrayed as a military victory at the time, but in 1970 a number of the soldiers involved presented themselves, first to the press and then to the Metropolitan Police, to confess that they had murdered the villagers. The resulting police investigation was terminated prematurely by the government against the wishes of the officers involved. In 1993, a Malaysian police investigation began, but was also blocked by the British government.

Then, in 2008, a campaign began in Malaysia to press for a public inquiry into what had happened and its cover-up. The inquiry was refused by the government in 2010, but challenged in the legal case that reaches the Supreme Court tomorrow. No compensation is claimed; the remedy the families of those killed seek from the Court is an inquiry to secure truth, acceptance of responsibility by Britain and accountability.

Madam Lim Ah Yin said today:

“I have travelled here to stand before the most senior judges in the UK. I want to let them know the struggle and hardship that my beloved Mother suffered after the death of my Dad during the massacre. My Mother told me that she won’t be able to see the justice be done in her lifetime, and she passed away about a decade ago. I am 78 years old and I am determined to see the long overdue justice be done for my beloved father.”

“Plainly, the bullets that killed half the inhabitants of Batang Kali can never return to their barrels and the time has long since passed when any soldier who fired them might be prosecuted. But when six of them have confessed to murder, eyewitnesses remain alive and forensic tests can confirm the killings were close-range executions, the law should demand answers from the state. After all, those killed were British subjects living in a British Protected State. They, and their families, have a right to meaningful British justice.”

Notes for editors:-

1. Madam Lim, her granddaughter and others from Malaysia will be outside the Supreme Court tomorrow morning at 9.30 AM for photographs and to answer brief questions from the press.

2. The appeal will be heard from 10.30 AM onwards by five judges in the UK Supreme Court, led by the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger. The other four panel judges are Lady Hale – the Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr and former prosecutor, Lord Hughes.

3. The families argue that Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights imposes a duty on the UK to commission an independent inquiry, despite the killings having occurred before the Convention was drafted and signed. They came close to victory in March 2014 when the Court of Appeal led by its second most senior judge, Lord Justice Maurice Kay, handed down a judgment stating that they would be likely to win in the European Court of Human Rights, but could succeed not at Court of Appeal level in the UK legal system. Very unusually, the Court of Appeal granted permission to appeal against its own ruling. Noting that the important principles on which their case was based had never before been tested in a UK court (judgment, para 71), the Court of Appeal held it was “probable” their case would succeed in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (para 83), adding “the appellants have forged the first link in the chain” (para 85) to establish an inquiry duty.

4. The original investigation into the killings in 1948-49 was subjected to withering criticism. The Court of Appeal commented “[w]e cannot escape the conclusion that the investigation at that time was woefully inadequate” (para 75). Later investigations, by the Metropolitan Police in 1970 and the Royal Malaysian Police in the 1990s, though incomplete, had unearthed evidence which “cast doubt on the original account” of a mass escape attempt being thwarted (para 82). This evidence included six of the soldiers involved confessing the killings were “murder” committed “in cold blood” (paras 37 and 43). The Court observed:

“The confessions which arose in 1969-1970 were of potential significance and remain so, not least because the investigation within which they emerged was brought to an abrupt halt. They have never been tested or discredited. The sum of knowledge has been significantly increased by the work of the Royal Malaysian Police twenty years ago but they were unable to secure meaningful co-operation from the United Kingdom authorities” (para 82).

5. All this meant there was a connection between the killings, the original inadequate investigation, the UK’s signature and ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights and the subsequent failure to undertake an inquiry when the new evidence came to light:

“The ‘genuine connection’ test focuses not only on what took place, pursuant to the article 2 procedural obligation, after the critical date but also on what ‘ought to have taken place’. In view of the limited nature of the investigation which took place before the critical date and the potential significance of the new material which has emerged since the critical date but which has never been subjected to the full rigour of independent evaluation, it is our view that, whilst we cannot predict with certainty what the ECtHR might decide, it is probable that it would find the ‘genuine connection’ test to be satisfied in this case” (para 82).

6. But the Court went on to hold that the Human Rights Act could not be used to enforce the family members’ Convention rights because the Supreme Court had not given clear guidance on the extent to which it applied to past events, noting that a “move in that direction would now be a matter for the Supreme Court, rather than for us” (para 100) and “it is for the Supreme Court in an appropriate case, to decide whether to change its jurisprudence so as to bring it into line” with current European Court of Human Rights case law, in particular the Janowiec v Russia decision which also concerned a historical massacre (para 86).

1948, the aftermath of World War 2. As Malaya frees itself from the clutches of Emperor Hirohito, an old colonial power returns to restore order and governance.

However for some, anarchy begets anarchy. Forces funded by the Queen to fight against the Japanese ignored orders to disband and turned their rifles to British soldiers instead. These groups became the groundwork into what became the Communist insurgency.

In response to the escalating threat from Malaya’s own Marxists, the British declared an “emergency” that gave them huge discretionary powers. They adopted a zero tolerance policy against communist sympathisers. This, coupled with the lack of sensitivity training on the local populace makes for a volatile situation.

As Raymond Burdett of the Suffolk Regiment puts it:

The trainers sought to get us to follow instructions, not to question commands.

Basic training for these troops focused on infantry skills, not their ability to judge the appropriateness of orders in the context of international law.

That fire was ignited in the December of 1948 when 7th Platoon, G Company, 2nd Scots Guards rounded up civilians for interrogation at Batang Kali, Selangor.

The process did not end well and led to the massacre of 24 civilians. Not content to stop there, their houses were burnt to the ground, leaving their relatives destitute and lost all source of income.

The official story was that the victims escaped from custody, prompting the soldiers to shoot the supposedly fleeing men. There was no mention of the battalion going rogue.

The case was however recently reopened and Britain’s highest court will be hearing the case on April 22nd.

In memory of the victims and in honour of the new inquiry, here are a few facts on the upcoming judicial review challenge for the Batang Kali massacre and its impacts.

1. The Eyewitnesses & Their Accounts

Romen Bose Tham, an eyewitness to the atrocity | Source: Getty Images

The slaughter did not eliminate all eyewitnesses. The spouses and relatives of those murdered managed to escape the onslaught only to see their dead relatives. The only adult eyewitness was a man named Chong Hong, who was in his 20s during the massacre.

One notable eyewitness was Lim Ah Yin, who was 11 when her father was murdered. According to The Guardian, she will be heard in the British Supreme Court for a judicial review challenge.

In a Guardian Interview, she was quoted describing the atrocity:

A soldier pointed at my father. They checked the rice and pushed him into a hut.

Then one of the soldiers pulled my mother’s arms. She was eight months pregnant. I and my sister tried to stop them taking her away but she was pushed down to the river.

We heard gun shots and thought my mother had been killed.

A week after the incident, Lim returned to her village with her mother. The sight she saw was not a positive homecoming.

The bodies were covered in flies. They were bloated and swollen, lying in groups of three or four.

Finally I found my father. He had been shot in the chest. That day, December 12th, had been my birthday.

2. The Aborted Investigations

Prior to this judicial review, there were 2 aborted investigations. The first investigation was made by Scotland Yard in the 1960s.

In a Central Officer’s Special Report from the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard dated 30th of July 1970, it was stated that the case was closed at the order of the Director of Public Prosecution.

The report claimed that the investigations were “politically motivated.” This was sensitive as the Conservatives just formed the government and enforced their political stance. The expose made by the “The People” newspaper that obtained testimonies from soldiers was dubbed a “publicity stunt”.

At one point, the Liberal Party president claimed that Bob Edwards, the then-editor of The People should be charged with criminal libel for his actions.

In 1993, the BBC produced an expose on the murders in their documentary series, In Cold Blood.

The shocking video ignited political will to open up investigations on the case. This led to the 2nd investigation led by the Royal Malaysian Police. The investigation, like the former was also aborted.

In the case of Keyu & Others v Secretary of State For Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs & ANR, there was an internal memorandum that claims that there is no specific need to provide rapid assistance to the Royal Malaysian Police.

The investigation required information from the Chief Pathologist that has examined the bodies and the names of the Scots Guard involved. However, all information was delayed.

In fact, it took a full year for the names of the Scot Guards to reach the Malaysian Police.

3. Admission To Murder

When American journalist Seymour Hersh covered the Vietnamese My Lai massacre, the debate on soldiers committing atrocities went beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Inspired by the expose, former serviceman William Cootes confessed to being part of the Batang Kali massacre.

Contrary to the official version of the story, he explained that his platoon commander, George Ramsay briefed his men to wipe out anybody in the area. This meant that the men shot were not running away from custody but victims of a war crime.

His confession became a domino effect and led the rest to admit their part in the killings. Below is an extraction from the same Metro Police report used prior..

Source: Metropolitan Police UK via the Freedom of Information Act

However, doubts were raised on their confession. The police claimed that the confessions were made with questionable conduct.

Source: Metropolitan Police UK via the Freedom of Information Act

4. Forensic Evidence Was Still Obtainable

A common trope that has been played out as the story unfolds is that evidence has not been sufficient.

In the first Scotland Yard investigation, the then-Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson claimed that there was a low probability of obtaining sufficient evidence. It was concluded that the investigation needs to be terminated.

In response to the an inquiry made by the ” Action Committee Condemning the Batang Kali Massacre” to the Foreign Secretary in December 2008, the high commissioner responded:

In view of the findings of the two previous investigations that there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecutions in this case, and in the absence of new evidence, regrettably we see no reason to re-open or start a fresh investigation.

However, Prof Sue Black, a forensic adviser informed The Guardian that evidence was still obtainable. According to her experience in Kosovo and Rwanda, evidence is still obtainable from the victim’s bodies.

Obtaining such evidence would refute the High Commissioner’s reply.

5. Impact to the Northern Irish Conflict

Source: Skepticism.org

Lawyers for the families of the victims argued that Britain has a duty to commission an independent inquiry under the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the convention came only into effect in 1998.

Because this applies a convention retrospectively, this would affect other situations that the British has been involved in the past. This is especially of concern for family members that still seek for reparations.

One issue that has been brought up are the allegations thrown to the Brits during the Northern Irish conflict, also known as the troubles.

In an interview with the Guardian, Yasmine Ahmed, director of Rights Watch UK was quoted saying:

The outcome of this case will have considerable implications in Northern Ireland, where many of the deaths that occurred during the Troubles happened before the enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998.

Conclusion

Despite how heart-wrenching the situation is, there is no way that the victims can have their situations restored. Reparations can only repair the physical, but not the psychological.

John Halford, a solicitor at the law firm Bindmans puts it best.

The bullets that killed half the inhabitants of Batang Kali can never return to their barrels and the time has long since passed when any soldiers who fired them might be prosecuted.

The least that the British government could do, is to at least acknowledge the war crimes a rogue squad did under their flag.

The lesson of this issue however does not stop in the British Isles. Malaysians tend to remember the “Malayan Emergency” as a period of heroism where a democratic country was able to ward off the fascist tendencies of the Malayan Communist Party.

While Greater Malaysia isn’t condoning the violent terrorist acts of Chin Peng’s foot soldiers, we have to acknowledge that our people once were in line with British soldiers that facilitated this slaughter.

The adaptation of a zero tolerance policy against communism led to the aggressive tendencies demonstrated here. In a desperation for victory on what was a faceless guerrilla force, these soldiers went to the extreme to proof there is an enemy out there.

This serves as a warning when dealing with another person of a different political ideology as ours. At what point can we find out that a person is willing to kill the innocent to protect an ideology?

London – The 24 victims’ families of the Batang Kali massacre continued their battle against Britain’s foreign and defence ministries at the British’s highest court here and the two-day hearing finally concluded on 23.04.2015. A decision is now reserved to a date to be fixed.

The appeal was presided by five Supreme Court judges, Lady Hale, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr, Lord Hughes together with their President, Lord Neuberger.

Madam Lim Ah Yin aged 78, is the elder daughter to Lim Sang, one of the workers being killed on 12.12.1948, attended the hearing in the Supreme Court accompanied by her granddaughter, Ms Wong Lee Ling, voluntary lawyers from the Action Committee condemning the Batang Kali massacre, Quek Ngee Meng and Datuk Firoz Hussein. The families are represented by Michael Fordham QC, Danny Friedman QC, Zachary Douglas QC and John Halford of Bindmans LLP.

The families have fought for years for a public inquiry but have been denied by British courts. Despite the Court of Appeal did not order an inquiry to be held last year, the court said it was “probable” the families’ case would succeed before the European Court of Human Right as the families have satisfied the court that the British Government were in breached of the fundamental human right – the right to life.

Families’ arguments

The families’ counsel Mr Fordham QC told the UK Supreme Court that failure and refusal of the British Government to take action to inquire further into the Batang Kali massacre are unlawful. He also pressed for the families that Britain must account for the killings under the European Convention on Human Rights even though the convention was ratified about 4 years later.

Michael Fordham QC, said: “at least three of the soldiers who were on patrol and at least four villagers who were at Batang Kali were still alive and their oral evidence would be available to an inquiry as well as the man who led the 1993-1997 Malaysian police investigation has indicated his readiness to assist an investigation.”

“Professor Sue Black, one of the UK’s leading archaeologists from Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee who explained that significant conclusion could be drawn from the examination of gunshot wounds from large groups of people, and that the task would not be onerous were the bodies exhumed.”

“The site of the graves is known, the families have confirmed their agreement to exhumation and the Malaysian Government has offered to facilitate it. Therefore, Professor Black’s contemplation is practical.”

The lawyer for the families submitted that Britain’s refusal to investigate cannot be justified to the proportionality standard of review. He stressed that some of the evidence presented before this highest court showed that the soldiers released the unarmed villagers onto the veranda was to wipe the villagers out, just as they were wiping out the village.

Another conclusion could be easily reached is to shoot and keep shooting until all men, with half of them over 50 in age, were lying dead on the ground was unnecessary and disproportionate use of force to effect the arrest. The “escape” hypothesis argued by the British Government just couldn’t meet the proportionate test. With this applicable standard of judicial review, only then the public interest considerations can be ventilated in the proper, independent forum: the supervising court.

British Government’s arguments

Now it is a story of denying legal responsibility for the acts of the British soldiers. The lawyers for the Ministry Foreign Affairs and Defence argued that the families’ position must fail as a matter of constitutional principle. Their counsel, Jonathan Crow QC, tried goad to convince the Judges that Sultan of Selangor or the Malaysian High Commission remain responsible for the unlawful killings upon independence of Malaya in 1957.

The counsel argued that both 6 months rule under the ECHR and one year rule under the UK Human Rights Act have set in where the time limit for human rights relief available to the families had expired several decades ago.

Crow QC also argued that there is a territorial limit for British Government to conduct an inquiry because some investigations will have to be conducted in Malaysia and there is not power of compulsions in this sovereignty state.

The importance of the action to Northern Ireland is marked by the fact that its Attorney General John Larkin QC has attempted to limit the state’s human rights obligations. He argues that “As for the recovery of historical truth – a matter of great importance – this may be a matter better addressed through the library and the archive rather than the courtroom.” The Judges also heard submissions from Ben Emmerson QC for the Northern Irish human rights group, which represent victims of the Northern Ireland Conflict during the hearing, that even historical cases deserve justice.

Victim’s family Lim Ah Yin’s heartbreaking journey to the UK’s highest court began more than 60 years ago. She was 11 year old at the time of killings and it was her birthday. Lim said: My beloved mother was depressed over these years before she died in 2006. I want to let the Judges know the struggle and hardship that she had been through after the death of my dad during the massacre.

Please be informed that hearing in London, Michael Fordham QC, Danny Friedman QC and Professor Zachary Douglas QC will make their submission before 5 panel members in the UK Supreme Court for the 1948 Batang Kali Massacre today, at 5.30pm later. The panel of judges including the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court.

You may watch the hearing in the Supreme Court [LIVE] at the links below:

Supreme court to hear case over deaths of 24 unarmed villagers at hands of Scots Guards in 1948, during communist uprising in UK protectorate

Lim Ah Yin, relative of a massacre victim, in 2012 (AFP/Getty)

Lim Ah Yin last saw her father alive on her 11th birthday. A British soldier, pointing a rifle, was telling him to shut up. A week later, she followed her heavily pregnant mother back to the Malayan rubber plantation and discovered his bloated body amid a swarm of flies. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

On Wednesday, Lim, now 78, will take a seat in the supreme court in London, to witness a legal battle over the government’s responsibility to hold inquiries into allegations of historical atrocities.

The judicial review challenge, brought by the relatives of 24 unarmed men killed by Scots Guards at Batang Kali on 12 December 1948, has broadened out into a dispute over the vanishing point of when unresolved claims of injustice are allowed to disappear into the past.

Northern Ireland’s attorney general, John Larkin QC, and several Northern Irish human rights groups have intervened on different sides in the case because of the precedent it will set for the official duty to investigate legacy cases from the Troubles. Larkin is expected to argue that the obligation to investigate is limited; the human rights groups will say that even historical cases deserve justice.

Lim’s heartbreaking journey to the UK’s highest court began more than 60 years ago. She was living with her parents near Batang Kali, a rubber estate in Selangor, then part of the British-protected Federation of Malaya. It was the height of the communist insurgency. On the morning of 11 December 1948, she followed her parents out to the paddy fields to harvest rice. On their way back they met British troops and saw the body of Loh Kit Lin, the first of the villagers to die.
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“A soldier pointed at my father,” Lim told the Guardian. “They checked the rice and pushed him into a hut. Then one of the soldiers pulled my mother’s arms. She was eight months’ pregnant. I and my sister tried to stop them taking her away but she was pushed down to the river. We heard gun shots and thought my mother had been killed.”

There were mock executions to persuade villagers to hand over information about “bandits”. Later that evening her mother was brought back to the hut. “I realised she had survived. Women and children were ordered to go upstairs. In the morning, we came downstairs and I heard my father’s voice. We had been ordered to go out to a lorry that was waiting.

“He [Lim’s father] said I should follow the adults. I told him mother was alive but a British soldier with a gun opened the door and told him to shut up. We climbed into the lorry and as it moved away we heard gunshots, sounding like firecrackers. As we looked back, we saw smoke come up from the [burning] houses.”

A week later Lim and her mother returned to Batang Kali on a truck carrying plywood coffins. “It was very smelly,” she recalled. “The bodies were covered in flies. They were bloated and swollen, lying in groups of three or four. Finally I found my father. He had been shot in the chest. That day, December 12th, had been my birthday.
New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British ‘massacre’ of villagers in Malaya
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“My mother cried almost every day. She brought me and my sister up. When the baby was born she gave it away for adoption. She only stopped crying when I married and her granddaughter was born. She was 92 when she died.”

Lim is one of seven living survivors who can recall what happened in Batang Kali. The official British account was that victims were attempting to escape when they were shot. In the years that followed there were two abortive criminal investigations by Malaysian and British police. Both were prevented from reaching a conclusion because of official opposition to interviewing witnesses.

In 1969, several of the Scots Guards on the patrol that day gave interviews to The People newspaper, alleging that they had been ordered to massacre villagers in Batang Kali. Two sergeants, however, insisted that the men had been shot because they tried to escape.

John Halford, a solicitor at the law firm Bindmans who represents the Malaysian survivors, said: “The bullets that killed half the inhabitants of Batang Kali can never return to their barrels and the time has long since passed when any soldiers who fired them might be prosecuted.

Police with locals under suspicion of collaborating with communist bandits during the Malayan emergency. Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty Images

“But when six of them have confessed to murder, eyewitnesses remain alive and forensic tests can confirm the killings were close-range executions, the law should demand an answer from the state. After all, those killed were British subjects living in a British protected state. They and their families have a right to meaningful justice.”

Prof Sue Black, a forensic anthropologist who has carried out excavations on mass graves in Kosovo and Rwanda, has advised Halford’s legal team that evidence could still be obtained from the victims’ bodies.

In the past the Foreign Office has resisted holding an inquiry, saying: “It is very unlikely that a public inquiry could come up with recommendations which would help to prevent any recurrence.” The government has also argued that any responsibility for an inquiry passed to Malaysia when the former colony became independent in 1957.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence said: “This was a deeply regrettable incident. The case will be heard in the supreme court on 22 and 23 April. It would not be appropriate to comment further whilst legal proceedings are ongoing.”

Yasmine Ahmed, director of Rights Watch UK, one of the groups involved, said: “The outcome of this case will have considerable implications in Northern Ireland, where many of the deaths that occurred during the Troubles happened before the enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998.”

Sara Duddy, a caseworker with the Pat Finucane Centre in Derry, said: “Dealing with the past, whether through inquests or investigations, continues to be a battleground where the UK government seeks to deny families the right to truth. The Batang Kali massacre is proof that the past will always come back to haunt us if it isn’t dealt with.”

After recounting her experiences, Lim said: “I hope the British government can give my family justice for all the suffering they have been through.”

[Supreme Court may revisit law in the light of European court ruling in Polish case.]

LONDON: Unlikely as it may first appear, a small town in Hulu Selangor will become the focal point of what may turn out to be a landmark human rights court case in the United Kingdom later this week when the UK Supreme Court revisits the circumstances surrounding the Batang Kali massacre in 1948, reports The Independent.

A quick dive into the annals of history will show that after World War II ended, the British returned to recover control of Malaya from Japanese forces only to find that guerrillas whom they had supported in the fight against the Japanese had turned to communism in a bid to oust the British themselves.

British-owned rubber plantations and tin mines were targeted, leading the authorities to declare a state of Emergency in June 1948 to curb the escalating violence.

In December 1948, a 14-member Scots Guards patrol entered a rubber plantation and rounded up all civilians. The men were separated from the women and children for interrogation about communist guerrilla activities operating locally.

The next morning, after the women and children had been driven away, 24 men were executed and the village was burnt down.

British authorities have previously accepted the army’s explanation that the men were insurgents who were attempting to escape detention.

Relatives, however, claim that they were civilians massacred in cold blood.

In 1970, an on-going investigation was suddenly halted when a new Conservative government took office.

Even an investigation into the incident by the Malaysian Police in 1993 had to be closed after the police received “virtually no assistance from the UK authorities.”

Families of the victims were reported to have petitioned the Queen twice prior to commencing the present legal action. On both occasions, no response was received.

In 2012, the families then took the challenge to the High Court but the case was dismissed. The Court of Appeal did likewise on March 19, 2014.

Despite this, relatives have some cause for optimism that the Supreme Court will decide differently.

According to The Guardian, this is due to a decision of the European Court of Human Rights in a case called Janowiec, which involved a massacre by the Russian army of Polish prisoners.

In that case, the court decided that Russia was under no obligation to investigate a massacre which took place some 58 years before Russia ratified the human rights convention.

The court, however, suggested that ratifying states may be required to investigate breaches of human rights which occurred a “reasonably short” time – not more than 10 years – before ratification.

The UK ratified the human rights convention less than five years after the killings at the Batang Kali massacre occurred.

In dismissing the appeal, the UK court of appeal held that it was bound by earlier decisions of the Supreme Court which held that UK’s Human Rights Act 1998 does not operate retrospectively.

The families were, however, invited to appeal to the Supreme Court to allow that Court to test its previous rulings in light of the Janowiec case.

The Court of Appeal even went as far as acknowledging that the Batang Kali case would probably succeed if it was taken up in Strasbourg, the seat of the European Court for Human Rights.

Lawyers for the British Government argue that the legal action has no merit because the incident occurred prior to ratification by the British Government of the Human Rights Convention. They also argue that the troops were under local Selangor command, and not UK command.

The case also has wide significance within the United Kingdom. If the Supreme Court rules in favour of the families, it would also mean that the British Government would likely have to open inquiries into contentious killings by British soldiers in Northern Ireland.